


Preludes and Fugues

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Partial Harmonics [1]
Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-07
Updated: 2010-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-09 23:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The months during which Jensen was apparently dead were a little hard on his sister and his niece; on the other hand, his team isn't exactly subtle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preludes and Fugues

[[Fugue in c-sharp minor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach_-_WTK1_Fugue_in_C-sharp_minor.ogg)]

Beth was in the library, and that's why she saw it at all. Sometimes the sixth-grade kids watched the news in the library at lunch time, and Beth was there just to sit, because she and Anna were fighting, which meant she didn't want to be in the playground. She was getting her new Reading notebook ready, and the new Science one instead - the labels were smooth and neat and clean, instead of ratty and greyish like they'd be later in the spring. Each one had her full name on it, printed in her own printing, very carefully:_ Elizabeth Isobel Jensen_. When she messed up, even a little bit, she threw that one away.

She only noticed at all because Mrs Closette looked up and got up to turn the TV off, like she did sometimes if the news turned out to be too disturbing. When she moved, it meant Beth looked up.

The TV was on just long enough to see Uncle Jake's face, and Col. Clay's, and then it was off. She didn't see why they were there. Mrs Closette was too fast, and she didn't pay any attention to how the boys whined when the TV went off.

Beth's stomach hurt.

She got up very carefully, pretending like nothing was wrong, and waited for one of the older kids to get off the library computers. After a few minutes, Mrs Closette noticed that she was waiting, and that Amy Portman was just checking her email, and made Amy let Beth on.

Uncle Jake had taught her how to find things on news-sites (national, international, anything) ages ago, so she could look up things and guess at where he was. At home she had a profile on the computer and her Firefox was all set up with all of the feeds of everywhere Uncle Jake might go, so that she could just scan through the headlines. Sometimes she guessed wrong, but a lot of the time she guessed right. And she followed everything she could.

She could have hunted through everything, found it no matter where it hid. She just didn't have to.

Because it was all over the front page of all the big networks. Along with the words _dead_ and _collateral_ and _unauthorized_ and _incident_ and Beth was a very, very good reader but she couldn't make the words work in sentences. Couldn't make them make sense at all.

Except the ones that did. Because _unauthorized_ had happened before, that was when the generals blamed everything on whoever was in the field when it was actually their fault but they had to cover their asses (Uncle Jake said), and _collateral_ meant ordinary people got killed and the news-sites said this time that meant kids, kids like her except in somewhere else, except in Bolivia. And _incident_ meant a lot of very important people were upset, and _dead_ -

It was hard to breathe and her hands weren't working right. She closed the window. Got her bag. Went out in the hall.

Then she thought she didn't know where she was going. She should call Mom. But the phone was all the way down at the principal's office and you had to ask permission to use it and you had to tell them why, and Mom said Beth was too little for a cell-phone except in emergencies and maybe Mom wasn't home _anyway_ and -

Mr Velazquez tapped her on the shoulder, really lightly; Beth jumped and turned around. He looked worried; he'd been her teacher last year, and she liked him. He was really tall, so sometimes he crouched down when he talked to you, and this was one of them; he asked, "Beth? Is something wrong?"

Beth opened her mouth to say no. Or maybe yes. Or maybe _I need my Mom, the news says my uncle's dead. _

Instead what comes out is a noise and she just bursts into tears.

 

[[Prelude and Fugue in e-flat minor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach_-_book_i-_prelude_and_fugue_no._8_in_e_flat_minor,_bwv_853_-_prelude.ogg)]

Holly kept her daughter home from school for a week.

Tori was good enough to go pick Bethy up from school, that day, because Holly driving would have been asking for someone to die. Amanda, Amanda was good enough not to argue when Holly half-ranted, half-shouted things she probably shouldn't've, that probably still counted as the classified things she wasn't supposed to know, except they were painting Jake's face all over the TV and throwing it all open and _fucking lying_. Amanda just listened and helped Holly clean up the mess the first storm left in her kitchen, when she pushed all the dishes off the table. Helped her clean it up before Bethy got home, and then later that night came over with casserole.

They were good people. They were all good people. Without them, she and Bethy would have lived off McDonalds for days, because Holly couldn't keep it together to cook, not well. And Bethy either cried, or sat on the computer looking through her news feeds while the story ran and then fell into silence. Holly thought she might have been a bad parent for not turning the computer off.

Nobody at the base would talk to her, more than to express their sympathy while looking over their shoulder in case someone heard them not toeing the line of those lies enough to just spit at her and have done. When she snapped at Captain Torres, when she pointed out that he damn well knew Jake's unit couldn't take out a _fucking helicopter full of kids,_ he looked nervous, said he was sorry, and wouldn't talk to her again.

Wendy took Beth to go pick up Jake's dogtags. Holly couldn't go. She'd've killed somebody. When she got an email from Jolene, Pooch's wife, it was comforting - kind of. But when she emailed back, she could only type, _I don't even know what to say. _

I know, Jolene sent back. And then, _The whole thing fucking stinks. _

Jolene Porteous was five months pregnant, when the notifications came in. Holly felt like shit for her.

 

Probably the biggest sign that the whole thing's a fucking setup is that the benefits aren't gone, and the life-insurance policies pay out. Holly dumps it all into Bethy's college fund, all of it. Can't think about it otherwise.

Bethy has trouble sleeping; for herself, Holly has nightmares, but she's got a better imagination for how bad things go than Bethy. More experience to draw from. At work nobody says anything about it at all, not after she shakes her head at Olivia and says _Don't_ on the first day.

The only thing that brightens Bethy up is soccer. And even that's not _bright_, not really - it's just that she's good at it, and it's just (Holly thinks) that it lets her run and move and think about nothing but the ball and where it needs to go. She's like her uncle, like that.

It's been just a little over three months, and Holly's in her room (because it's more comfortable to just lounge on her bed when Bethy's got the news on that loud), on the phone to Amanda about the year end soccer sleepover when Bethy comes charging up from the den, full of _Mom Mom Mom, you have to come see this Mom you have to come see this_ now _Mom_ and not paying any attention to Holly's pointed gestures to the phone.

Eventually - well, after not long at all, actually, because usually Beth was good about this - Holly says, "Amanda? Bethy needs me for something, I'm going to have to call you back." Beth half drags her down the stairs, around the corner in the kitchen and down into the basement den. "Look," she says, using the cable-rewind, "look I was recording it because I do that but then I had to pause so it's actually over now but Mom, _look_ \- " and she hits play again.

For a minute, she doesn't get it - processions of amoured cars aren't that unusual, and she's about to ask Bethy _what_ when the first and last cars in the train . . . blow, their hoods pop off and there's a little bit of fire and they crash. They crash forming a perfect blockade around the van in the center.

"What - " Holly starts, but Bethy doesn't let her.

"No, _look_, Mom," she says, waves the remote at the TV screen to make her point.

She can't say whether it's the helicopter, or the way one of the other SUV's fucking explodes without warning, or the fact that someone in the armoured train has a fucking .50 cal to turn on the helicopter, but she finds she's got her hand over her mouth and she's sitting down and saying, "Oh my god. Oh my god," over and over again.

"You see?" Bethy says, and she's vibrating. Holly can only look at her.

"Where is this?" she asks, pointing weakly at the TV.

"Miami," Bethy says. "It's in Miami. And yesterday somebody stole something big from a base down there, really big, Mom, because everyone's talking around it, like, it was a security breach but they won't say what and are trying to make it not-a-story, but I bet it was a helicopter, and - "

Holly reaches out to her daughter's hands, pulls her over, starts to say, "Bethy, baby - "

"You said it was a set-up," her baby girl says, eyes earnest. "You did. And, and if it was, and they knew, wouldn't Uncle Jake's team try to make everyone think they were dead? Missus Jolene never got the wedding ring."

"I didn't know you were paying attention to that," Holly says, quietly.

"It could be," Bethy says, her eyes bright and this time it's because they're wet. "It could be them."

Holly should quash it, she knows. A one-in-a-million, and living on hope is cruel, and -

And someone just stole an armoured vehicle in Miami. With a helicopter. And explosives.

"Yeah," she admits. "It could be." She kisses Bethy on the cheek and says, "But you're going to be late for soccer if you don't get ready. You can look up all the news when you get home."

As if her girl would need the permission.

While Bethy's upstairs getting changed, Holly rewinds and rewatches the feed again, and again. She keeps the sound turned off. She just watches.

Over in one corner of one shot, she thinks she might see someone in a red shirt - with round glasses. But she can't get a better look, and it could be wishful thinking.

She says to the TV, "If you're alive, I'm going to kill you," and turns it off to go drive Bethy back to the field.

 

[[Prelude in c-sharp minor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach_-_WTK1_Prelude_in_C-sharp_minor.ogg)]

Clay goes with Jensen to his sister's for the same reason he waited outside the hospital until he could talk to Jolene. For the responsibility of it. He drives, Cougar rides shotgun and Jensen's in the back-seat fiddling around with something that looks like a box.

"I don't think you have to come bearing gifts," Clay says, glancing over his shoulder. Jensen doesn't look up when he answers.

"I totally missed her birthday," he says. "It was last week. What kind of uncle would I be if I didn't have a present?"

"A live one?" Clay offers, as Cougar shakes his head and they hit the driveway. Jensen doesn't answer.

It's a nice house. Split level, not too big, lawn that's trimmed but not fussy, no digging out the dandelions. Could use another coat of paint in a couple years. Clay parks beside the 89 Toyota in the drive.

"Right," Jensen says, opening the back door and gathering up the box and himself. "If I don't get out of this alive, Pooch gets my Playstation and Cougar can have everything else." He's out before Clay can say anything to that, so he looks at Cougar instead.

Cougar shakes his head. "This is not going to go well," he says. Clay's eyebrows go up, and he'd point out that Jolene seemed to take it pretty well and when the abandoned pregnant wife takes it well you'd think you were home free - but having never actually met the woman, he's willing to bow to his sergeant's knowledge of Jensen's sister.

Which means when - after she's stared for about thirty seconds and looked him up and down, but still - when the tiny, blonde woman with glasses who answers the door tries to give Jensen a black eye, Clay's only a little bit taken aback. Cougar says, "Don't get out of the car yet," which - if he actually thought it was important enough to say it, Clay'll stay in the car a bit.

They can't actually hear what she's yelling, as far as words go, from inside the car, but apparently she's talking about them, too. She points her finger at them and then says more; prods Jensen where he's still got his shiny new scar on his arm; winds up with her hands on her hips while Jensen's got his up, defensive, trying to explain.

And then she's using the heel of her hand to wipe her cheek, under her eye, and _eventually_, after that, she's just crying and there's the hug Clay actually expected.

"Now?" he shoots at Cougar, and Cougar nods, pushing his own door open.

Jensen's sister pushes away from him as Clay and Cougar walk up, wiping her face. She takes her glasses off to clean them on her shirt, jerks her chin at Cougar.

"So what's your excuse?" she demands, but Cougar just opens his arms and doesn't pretend to have one. He does, though, get a hug. Clay's not sure whether he's surprised or not.

The woman's a bit more composed when she finally does turn to Clay, with her glasses back on and exactly the same eyes as her brother. Clay extends a hand, and she does take it, with a good grip for someone as tiny as she is. "Franklin Clay," he says, although he's pretty sure she knows that.

"Holly," she says, and lets his hand go. "Somebody had better have a really good fucking story for me, that's all I'm saying."

"If we take it off your street," Clay counters, and after looking at him, Holly nods.

Then she pulls a pair of keys out of her back pocket and shoves them at Jensen. "I'm not talking to you," she says, matter-of-factly. "Your niece is at the school for soccer, go pick her up."

Jensen takes the keys, trades them for the box. "Birthday present," he says, and if she still looks pissed off, he seems pretty calm as he heads to the car.

"That doesn't get you out of trouble!" she yells, as he gets in. When she looks over at Cougar, it seems she notices the half-smile, because she jerks the box at him. "_You're_ not out of trouble either," she snaps.

Holly doesn't say anything to Clay, doesn't pass it on to him; from the look she gives him, he suspects she's reserving judgement.

 

[[Fugue in C Major](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Sebastian_Bach_-_The_Well-tempered_Clavier_-_Book_1_-_03Efuge_maj.ogg)]

Jenny Gladysz winces when Beth stops in the middle of the field, stops dead and so Cory runs right into her, of course, and they both go down in a tangle of legs and arms and cleats. She thinks she maybe sees a scrape up Beth's leg -

But Beth's just pushing Cory off as fast as she can, and then she scrambles to her feet and sets off at a _dead run_, leaving Jenny and Eda, the other coach, to stare after her.

There's a guy in his thirties in a bright yellow shirt. Beth hits him like a little speed-train, but all he does is swing her up as she - hell it's more of a cling then a hug, and he cradles the back of her head and holds her up.

"Who - ?" Eda asks, and Jenny shakes her head.

"No idea."

The guy doesn't come any closer; he puts Beth down, crouches down a bit to talk to her for a minute and Jenny realizes Beth's wiping her eyes and rubbing at them, like she's crying. And Jenny can see she was, too, when Beth comes running fill-tilt back to grab her bag.

"Sorry," she says breathless, "I-have-to-go-home-early-today-I'll-see-you-on-Monday," like it's all one word and before Eda can say much more than _hey, wait -_ the little girl takes off again.

"Should we - ?" Jenny asks, not finishing it, not sure what to do with that. "I mean, they're not supposed to go home except with a designated - "

The guy in the yellow shirt has Beth's hand. He waves at them all, and then both of them are walking away; less than a few steps later and he's picked her up again, carrying her with one arm against his hip, and the bag over the other shoulder.

"You want to fish out her mom's number?" Eda says, finally. "I mean, I've never seen a kid run crying _towards_ an abductor, but - "

"Yeah," Jenny says, and goes for the registration files.


End file.
